


Universal Remote

by littlelostsock



Category: The Wyrd - Alis Franklin
Genre: Domesticity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3442490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelostsock/pseuds/littlelostsock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lain has a nice entertainment system at his house. Unfortunately, his universal remote is crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Universal Remote

Sig and Lain were spending a night in at Lain’s place. It still felt like A Thing to Sig, but he supposed from the pile of his laundry laying on Lain's otherwise immaculate bedroom floor, it really wasn't anymore. Half of him still reveled in the small feeling of rebellion, the other half reminded himself that he was an adult and perfectly within his limits to stay the night at his boyfriend's house. The impossible third half of him didn't want think too hard about the various levels of _who_ his boyfriend was and why he had such a nice house.

Because that was the thing. He wished it would be hard to stay away from home, and Dad. But it was easy to stay at a house with memory foam beds and programmable showers and a television screen that literally took up an entire wall.

They sat in front of one at this very moment, Sig idly surfing through channels and Lain playing something on his phone.

The universal remote that ran the whole entertainment system was easily the weakest link in the beautiful multi-million dollar monstrosity, made all the worse by the fact that Lain got all the channels. Actually, from what Sig could tell, literally _every channel_ , grouped roughly by language and region. Despite having tried every button on the remote, he couldn't find the one to bring up the channel guide, so he quickly scrolled through a few Dutch? maybe? channels to get to the English ones.

"This thing is the wo-oo-orst," he moaned for the hundredth time that week.

Lain made a noncommittal noise. At least it wasn't his usual "you're the tech geek" answer, which always got a "you're the owner of a tech company and can develop the only functional universal remote" back. Which, after a few less creative quips on Sig’s part, was inevitably why he had half the code written for a remote app for his phone. Which he could be working on now instead of complaining, but that would mean moving, and he was just too comfortable reclining on his boyfriend for that to be a real possibility.

Sig blinked and stopped his scroll, wondering what he was looking at. Was it... wrestling? Sweaty men in ridiculous costumes in a ring? He wasn't sure what he thought wrestling was. Probably he was thinking of boxing? Or maybe Olympic wrestling? But this wasn’t it.

"Is that a ladder?" Lain was looking up too, game forgotten and one eyebrow raised high at the larger-than-life men on the TV. They seemed to be climbing around on support structures around the caged ring, while using the ladder as a weapon.

"I don't even... Wait, did he just body slam the ref?"

For the next ten minutes they sat staring, slack-jawed and getting entirely too into it in turns. The dishwasher chimed its end of cycle, and the washing machine sang a tune of completion, but those tasks could wait, as weirdly enjoyable as they were when Sig was doing them with Lain. The spectacle of wrestling was too much to drag their eyes from.

"Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous?" Sig asked offhand, watching a man scale a chain link fence to get on top of the ring, all the while carrying a fold-up chair.

"I have. I once saw Thor wrestle an old lady who turned out to be the embodiment of old age. She was fucking _brutal_."

Sig imagined the scene he was watching on the TV, but with a giant redhead and an old lady in Viking clothes. It honestly wasn’t that much different from what was on the TV. The bent old lady started smashing Thor with a chair in his mental image, and he stifled a giggle. "Um. How did that go?"

"There were fewer ladders, but it was arguably just as staged."

Something clicked in Sig’s memory. "I remember that story. At Utgard-Loki's. Em's always talking about it, saying that's you, too." He didn't really mean to say that last part out loud. It was in the part of his brain that he saved for times when he wasn’t enjoying domestic couch time with Lain. The part reserved for the things he’d seen that didn’t make sense yet. But he had thought it, and that was as good as saying it when you were sharing personal space with a vaguely psychic god.

Lain felt the general discomfort and smiled through it. "There are no fewer than three versions of me in the CliffsNotes version of that story. You can Google it." He looked at Sig, who was struck right at that moment by the different shades of green he could see in Lain's eyes, reflected from the moving light of the TV, all overlapping. Sig wondered if he had seen that before. "I've been the amalgamation of multiple characters across time and space for a long time now. This time is different, maybe, but it’s not exactly new."

Sig took a deep breath and reached for Lain's hand, winding his thick dark fingers through Lain's long freckled ones. He hated harsh transitions into Serious Talk, but it was probably his fault. "I think that's probably normal. Real people aren't just one thing, one essence, like they are in stories." He thought of throwing in some reference to layers, but that sounded too much like something out of Shrek, and that was maybe less appropriate.

"Well, it's definitely a metaphor. Or at least, it's become one." Lain shrugged and squeezed Sig’s hand, as if he was unconcerned with the more metaphysical aspects of himself right then. He nodded at the TV. "Can you turn this off? It's all infomercials now. I can only listen to the dangers of four hour erections for so long."

Sig hadn't noticed that the wrestling was over, and grabbed for the remote. "I wish I could." Sig pressed all the power buttons, but nothing managed to get the job done. He could get the sound off, but the screen remained on despite his efforts.

Lain snapped his fingers and the light from the TV was suddenly gone. Sig could make out a wide, crooked grin on Lain's face as his eyes fought to adjust to the light.

"You’ve been able to do that the whole time, haven’t you?"

"Yes," an unashamed Lain said, eyes sparkling.

Sig hit him with a pillow, his grumpiness only mostly feigned while Lain kissed him and they melted down into the couch.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read about Utgard-Loki, [you should](http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/mythology/myths/text/thor_utgard.htm) (everyone sleeps in a giant's mitten, among other great hijinks). And yes, there are [three Lokis in that myth](http://celto-germanic.blogspot.com/2013/08/loki-logi-and-utgard-loki-three.html), who may or may not be distinct from the Loki we know today. Lain and Sig are watching something loosely based on [Hell in a Cell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgYoYTbnPo4) (but with [more ladders](http://teadalek.tumblr.com/post/101383957305/themaskednegro-i-want-someone-who-doesnt-watch)?). Thanks for the wrestling recs, Alis! And, you know, thanks for writing great stories. Sorry it took so long for a fic. Thanks to [latitans](http://archiveofourown.org/users/latitans/) for the beta.


End file.
